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The Legal Fiction: David Fraser and the Struggle of Montreal’s "Honorary Protestants"
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pplpod by pplpod
E3330
15:42
Imagine a system that requires your identity to be legally redefined just so your children can learn algebra. In this episode of pplpod, we deconstruct the bizarre bureaucratic absurdity of Montreal’s public school system through David Fraser’s 2015 work, Honorary Protestants. We analyze the 130-year legal struggle (1867–1997) of the Jewish community as they navigated a constitutional framework that only recognized two rigid categories: Catholic and Protestant. This "Jewish School Question" forced a massive legal fiction where Jewish students were absorbed into a "non-Catholic" definition, granting them the paradoxical status of honorary Protestants. We explore the legal history of this period, utilizing Fraser’s "contextual stance on the rule of ...